Like Sunshine
by Schildkroete
Summary: Koschei and Theta, the Master and the Doctor, back in their academy days and during the rule of 'Mr Saxon'. Rated for strongly suggested future rape.


Like Sunshine

By Schildkroete

-

_When he was a child, a long, long time before he called himself The Master and left his homeworld for the dark and endless planes of the universe__, a boy named Koschei used to stare at his teachers, unseeingly, and dream. He dreamed of all the possibilities open to him once he was able to leave Gallifrey on his own, imagined the places he would see, the things he would do while the teachers – old, rusty academics that were so far beyond dreaming he wanted to laugh – told them how important it was for them to do absolutely nothing. Occasionally his gaze would wander through the room and over the faces of the other children, listening intently, bored, or not at all. The classrooms had no windows, for the sole purpose of preventing the pupils to stare out of them but behind him, in the last row, sat a boy who gave the impression of staring out of a window none the less, and see all the wonders their teachers tried to keep hidden. Sometimes a smile, ever so faintly, could be seen on his lips. He never noticed he was being stared at himself._

_The next year Koschei got a seat behind the boy and found himself staring more often, now that he could do so without attract__ing too much attention and pain in his neck. He couldn't see his face anymore, but he imagined the wistful look in his eyes, the way his expression would sometimes soften and he could still see when he sighed soundlessly and rested his head on his arms folded on the table to gaze at faraway places only he could see. And Koschei would sigh as well and think that it was a shame, a crime for them to be locked up here like this._

_He never talked to him, though, never sought out__ his presence and the other boy remained largely ignorant of his existence. He didn't appear to have any friends, nor did he seem to need any. He rarely joined their conversations, but whenever he did it was always to tell someone that whatever he or she just said was stupid and to explain how it actually was, and so he always managed to bring someone up against him. What they thought of him didn't appear to be a concern of his. Koschei never took the opportunity to get into a discussion with him, even though he recognized a kindred spirit who could give him so much more than the dull, unimaginative boys he hang out with. There was no actual reason for it – it wasn't like he was scared of getting scorned by the others for socializing with the wired outsider who never knew a single answer in class yet managed to makes them all feel like stupid babies, who they laughed at when he wasn't there, but never when he could hear it, because they would never admit he made them nervous. He just didn't._

_Koschei never joined the talk about him or openly acknowledged his __existence. But he listened whenever he was the topic and what information remained once he stripped way rumours and gossip was curiously sparse. No-one even knew his real name._

_He often was late for class, but the teachers just ignored that. He always came close to failing his tests but never actually did so. His hair was longer than allowed and there was always something slightly wrong with the way he wore his clothes, but no-one seemed to care. In class, everyone would just pretend he wasn't there while Koschei stared at his back and wondered what he was seeing in the spot he stared at, where everyone else only saw a wall._

_Five years passed without them sharing a single word._

_-_

_When he was thirteen Koschei discovered the books the Old Ones didn't want them to know about. The books about the world__s out there, about the dangers and the beauty, written so long ago, in the mystic, forbidden past, when the Time Lords still knew how to use their wings. He found the library in the tower, and he found a way to get inside. The lock was hard to pick and when, after three nights of trying, it finally clicked open he felt self-satisfied in a way he knew a Time Lord shouldn't feel about doing something wrong._

_There were other books as well, about time travel, about explosives and a thousand ways to kill a star. This was what some of them would learn in class, many years later. For now, it was off limits, because__ it was too hard to understand they said, but Koschei knew they only feared that some child actually might understand it. They thought they were too young for the responsibility of knowledge. He grabbed some of the more interesting books and shoved them into his bag. When he came to the sections for history, the one that originally called him here, he nearly dropped it._

_There was another person standing there, in the pale moonlight falling in through the high windows, and Koschei almost turned to run before he realised that anyone allowed to be here would have switched on the lights. So he looked again and thought that he really shouldn't have been surprised. He still was._

"_Theta," he said, speaking the name for the first time ever, tasting it. "What are you doing here?"_

_The boy whose name wasn't Theta, looked up from the book he'd skipped through and put into his own bag. He grinned happily._

"_Same as you, Koschei," he said, and Koschei felt irrationally happy and didn't know why. He knew his name._

"_I've been dying to come here__," the other boy added. He was wearing a sleeping-robe and no shoes, Koschei realized, and his fair hair looked almost silver in the light of the moon. "I'm picking the places I want to go." He waved with another book before it, too, went into the bag._

"_This is the first time you came here?" Koschei asked, wondering if any of this was actually happening. Theta snorted._

"_I had to wait for you to get that door open," he explained. "Took you pretty long." There was a hint of accusation in his voice that was replaced by boyish admiration before Koschei could think of a response. "Still, good work. How did you get around the security alarm?"_

_Koschei could__ only stare at him in confusion._

"_What security alarm?" he asked._

_Then they ran._

_-_

_Hal__f an hour later, when they left the citadel and ran, laughing, over the snowy plains outside, Koschei thought that he should really have known better. There always was some sort of silent alarm. They were lucky to have gotten away in time. Still, there would probably be some fallout later, but right now he was outside under the stars and Theta's bare feet were leaving ridiculously small traces in the shallow snow._

_They stopped a few hundred metres later to catch their breath. They laughed._

"_We're in so much trouble", Theta said, and Koschei agreed. They he turned his head to look at his companion, like he had done so many, many times before. Only this time Theta looked back, and smiled._

-

The sun is shining and the sky is full of monsters. The Master smiles to himself, as he gazes out of the window, before turning away to slowly walk back to the bed. His smile fades.

The Doctor is facing away, stubbornly refusing to look at him until he gently grabs his chin and turns his head. Three weeks ago the Master has turned him back to normal. The next day he's tried to free his immortal freak and escape. As a response the Master has ordered the Toclafane to kill ten-thousand humans. Something has broken inside the Doctor that day and he hasn't tried again.

This time, the Master holds all the cards.

The Doctor's skin feels unnaturally warm. Not as warm as Lucy's or that of all the other humans around him, who just remind him that this is not home every time he touches them, but much warmer than the skin of a Time Lord should be. When he touches him like that the Master can sense, the way only a Time Lord can sense with another, the pounding headache that makes it so hard for him to think, the pain in his bones. It's a side effect of the drugs he gives him to keep him weak, harmless. Even with the tread to his beloved humans the Master knows better that to think him defeated.

Their eyes lock and the Master can see grief and guilt and impotent rage in the other's mind. He smiles.

Then he lets go of his chin and the Doctor slumps, as far as the handcuffs chaining him to the wall allow. The skin of his writs is bruised and he flinches when the Master slowly runs a finger over the raw flesh where the skin is gone completely, a gesture that is uncaring in its tenderness of the pain it inflicts. He sighs in a way that almost isn't theatrically.

"We have to do something about this," he says in a language spoken only by them. "It's infected."

"You could remove the cuffs," the Doctor suggests, making him laugh.

"And have you trying to kill me the moment I turn my back? I can't risk you forcing me to eliminate so many people again. After all, I am responsible for these adorable little humans, am I not?"

The Doctor says nothing, just closes his eyes. He is pale and his breath comes somewhat forced. He really has to do something about this, the Master decides, because, as much as he likes seeing him suffer a little, he'd never let him die. He can't let him die.

He tells him so, in a hushed whisper like a lover.

"Why would I want to rule this planet without you being here to see it?" he says, causing the Doctor to look at him with something that is almost hope but not quite.

"So, If I die you leave them in peace?"

The Master's answering smile is patronizing.

"No. I'd blow up the planet and everyone on it." The Doctor nods – he really can't have expected anything else – and looks away. The Master runs a hand through his tangled hair and leans closer until he's almost lying beside him, inhaling the scent of the only person in the entire universe that smells like home.

"There are only aliens here", he whispers into his ear. "This is the world you created."

-

_When they were fifteen, their class was split in two parts and Theta stayed in the old rooms while Koschei and the others moved into another tower of the c__itadel. It wasn't forbidden to move from one tower to the other in their free time but somehow they never did._

_Mont__h passed before Koschei set foot outside the buildings again. One night, when he couldn't sleep, he just walked out, where the snow was falling, and found Theta lying on the ground staring into the sky. There where snowflakes on his lashes that didn't melt._

_Koschei looked up, at the clouds._

"_There are no stars tonight", he said._

"_There are," Theta insisted. "You just cannot see them."_

-

_When he was seventeen the routine of the academy annoyed Koschei like nothing else. Every day he got up at the same time, went to his early classes, went to have lunch, went to the rest of the classes, went to sleep. The time in between was filled with learning. There was little time for anything else. Maybe, he thought, that was the plan. They made them geniuses to keep them from using their minds for anything creative._

_Already Gallifrey felt like a prison._

_One m__orning in summer, he had his breakfast on a terrace outside with the rest of his class, while the first sun was just rising over the faraway mountains. In the distance he spotted a tall, lanky figure standing on a hill, motionless, and didn't have to look twice to know who it was. Without another word to his friends he left and wandered over, not listening to the part of his mind that told him he would be late for class if he kept walking._

_Theta didn't turn when he reached him. Instead he pointed at a spot in the distance and asked:_

"_Do you see the building__ over there?"_

_Koschei looked and eventually found what he was talking about; the ruins of an old temple, overgrown and forgotten. He had never noticed it before._

"_Have you ever been there?" he wanted to know. Theta shook his head._

"_No. Do you want to go?"_

_Koschei snorted. The temple was out of the grounds they were allowed to walk and far out of reach._

"_It's too far away," he pointed out, causing his friend to give him a brilliant smile._

"_We'll never know if we don't try!"_

_Oh, but they did know, Koschei thought. Because it was obvious._

_But he didn't protest when Theta took his hand and started to run._

_-_

"You know," the Doctor mumbles distractedly. "I always thought that 'Master' was a terrible stupid title to chose."

"Indeed?" The Master is sitting behind them, cradling his enemy in his lab while injecting the next dose of drugs into his arm. He's removed the cuffs earlier this day because there really is not point to them anymore. There is blood seeping trough the bandages around his wrists.

"Oh yes. I mean, any proper villain would try to seem harmless at first, to deceive the people and make then trust him. Makes things easier. But when you introduce yourself as 'the Master' right away it tells a lot about your intentions…" His voice trails off.

The Master decides not to point out that it has worked just fine for him anyway, and he _did _use other names often enough. It isn't really the point of the discussion. He isn't sure there is a point at all.

The Doctor squirms a little when the needle breaks his skin where countless other needles have left their mark before. He gasps when the poison enters his system because it _hurts_ and the Master considers taking him right here and now, break through his telepathic defences, make him scream. He considers letting the freak watch. Or he could film it and show it to the entire world. He turns the thought over in his mind even as he gently strokes his old friend's hair.

"As if 'The Doctor' would be so much better", he muses. "It tells absolutely nothing. Doctor of what?"

The man in his arms smiles brokenly.

"Exactly."

-

_Despite it__s two suns Gallifrey was a cold planet and only for two short seasons of many the temperature rose above freezing. Koschei and Theta were lying on the ground outside, like they did so many times before, when the first snow started falling. They didn't talk, just stared into the starless sky in silence, until Koschei rolled over and stared at Theta._

_The cold was slowly creeping into their clothes, but Theta either didn't notice or didn't care. After a while Koschei crawled over to him, sat onto Theta's stomach and took hold of his hands, pressing them to the hard, cold ground._

_An eternity passed by while they looked at each other, each searching for something in the others face, neither sure they found it. Then Koschei leaned in and gently pressed his lips to Theta's, where snowflakes had fallen. In the space between them he could feel the beating of four hearts, like music, until they parted._

"_Tell me your real name," Koschei said._

_But Theta never did._

-

Lucy is watching him with that distant look on her face when he unlocks the door to the Doctor's room. He can tell she's bothered by something but can't bring himself to care.

The Doctor is sitting on the bed, wrapped in a blanket and trembling in spite of the warm air. He hasn't spoken a single word in a month and when he looks at him the Master can still see that delightful defiance in his eyes.

Following an impulse he walks over in a few long strides and punches him in the face, sending him sprawling on the floor. Before he can get up the Master kicks him in the rips, in the stomach, three, four times, and leaves him lying there struggling for breath while he walks back to the door to lock it.

When he returns he sits on the edge of the bed and pulls the Doctor up to sit beside him. His arm around his bony shoulder he says, in his best business voice:

"I offer you this: You stop pouting and talk to me again and I won't wipe out Manchester."

The Doctor's voice is quiet and hoarse when he answers.

"What would you like me to say?"

"Let's begin with my name."

There is a slight hesitation.

"Master."

"Ah, yes. I missed that." He presses a quick kiss to the other man's forehead. "All those humans out there insist on calling me Mr Saxon or 'Harry'. For some reason they almost never use my title."

"I wonder why," the Doctor mumbles. The Master punches him again.

"You will behave tonight", he says matter-of-factly, "because otherwise people will die. Starting with the family of your little friend." He grabs his hair and jerks back his head. "Her mother makes great coffee, by the way," he mumbles against the Doctor's throat, his still too warm skin. "You want some?"

"Why did you come here?" There is a hint of nervousness in the other's voice. The Master's behaviour unsettles him, more than usual, frightens him. In his quieter moments the Master is frightened himself, because he knows he's not in control of his own mind and can't explain why. Right now he doesn't care.

He pushes the Doctor down onto the bed, straddles him. Without further hesitation he kisses him, for the first time in the better part of a millennium. His lips taste like the snow on Gallifrey and the Master thinks _Yes_, and deepens the kiss, pushes his tongue into the Doctor's mouth in a way that would be tender and loving if the other wasn't resisting. When he breaks the kiss the Doctor looks hurt and confused and _scared_.

"I will fuck you now", the Master states before he can say anything. He slowly runs one hand over the Doctor's chest, counting his rips through his clothes while his other hand undoes his own tie. "You will not fight me or ask me to stop, because if you do, people will die."

He kisses him again, harder this time. "You will do as I tell you." His hand slips into the waistband of the Doctor's pants. The other Time Lord jerks away but says nothing. "You will let me hurt you, to keep me from hurting your friends", the Master whispers. "But if you're honest to yourself, you know that you will let me hurt you because you want me to. Because you know you deserve it. Because you want someone to take away the pain and know I'm the only one who can do it. The only one who'd try." He kisses away the tears on his lashes and allows his lips to twist into a cruel smile.

"I can help you", he says, mocking the meaningless words spoken by the Doctor so long ago. "Don't you see? All we've got is each other." Another kiss, and his hands are willing to hurt. "Let's go home."

- End

July 03, 2007


End file.
